There's always been the "zero tolerance" for alcohol!! It just needs a little tweeking.I Used to take the kids for years, and yes, I carried a cooler with pop and beer.. The problem seems to be the 18-25 crowd who think it's a toga party! Let the families watch the parade and clamp down on the underage drinkers..(or at least keep them in line!) This was a great tradition and sorely missed..Tinley Park is nice but it is way too small to handle this parade.. Go out and have a good time.. If you have to get fall down drunk to enjoy yourself, go do it in a bar or go home and do it after the parade!!!!

this will be interesting to see how they plan on having enough officers to enforce the policy

Glad the same security firm that handles Bear games is helping with security. Too many of CPD looked the other way while their own SS irish sons and their friends ruined the parade for everyone. There are great st Pats parades all over the Chicago area. The South Side Irish parade was the best for years and im glad its back. I will be there with my kids and if I see ANY alcohol I will gladly tell on you! I invite everyone that loves the parade to do the same so we can preserve the tradition for our kids!

Pat F.; saying the policy was always there but needs 'tweaking' is akin to saying there is law against kids being out after curfew but not for the 'good kids' or saying alcoholics with DUI convictions should get a 'hardship license'; it always sounds okay on paper, but never works in the real world.
The Southside parade has been a drunken idiots' convention for twenty years, so saying that it is '18-25 year olds' might be accurate, but only if you count that the people who are now 35-45 were once that same group. I have been southside resident all my life, and saw the same behavior years ago. I have attended the parade periodically, but always stop for a few years after I go because it's always the same.
Bottomline: There is NO reason why anybody NEEDS a beer or other alcohol to watch a FAMILY PARADE. It isn't allowed downtown, why does the Southside always have to live DOWN to the rest of the city's expectations?
People always wonder why the Southside gets the politcal shortshrift; we look like provincial bumpkins might be a start. Leave the coolers at HOME, bring the kids to see a nice parade, allow the policy to work as it is intended...winks and nods at the law while doing what we want makes the laws irrelevent. Why live in a society that says we care about family and children when we can't even stand for a couple hours with our children in our arms and watch something festive without worried about having a drink? Sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason...

I have lived in Beverly my whole life. 50 + years. I lived only blocks from the parade. You can not tell me there was EVER a zero tolerance! Every year, year after year, we have our youth drinking in the street and being disruptave. I also had people park in my alley and literally BLOCK the doors to my garage. Insane! I am glad the parade is back because my children enjoyed it. We just didn't enjoy the drunk kids who were walking down the block with beers in their hand.

it's party time lol just wait and see they will cancel it again ,drunks don't learn !

I hope it works. It used to be fun but turned into drunken kaos. A real shame because it should be about showing your kids something really special right in your own neighborhood.

if we want to stop the drunks and underage drinking lets just start prohabition again and that will calm the streets to have nice parade to enjoy for the family and there are not enough police officers in the city of Chicago to stop the obsesive drinking

IF THEY HAVE IT.... YOU NEEDN'T GO. Stay Home.

Don't leave your house either because the many many many fatalities aren't limited to western avenue - morons exist everywhere and the problems aren't nearly limited to the confines of the parade route.

Shame the city is like Charley Brown - and Lucy is this stupid parade.

QC, the stereotype that Southsiders aren't as smart as Northsiders, primarily...furthermore, while I don't believe that, nor do I believe Irish people are dumber tham any other ethnicity, the fact that it is a 'Southside Irish parade' and has people DEFENDING criminal, stupid, rude behavior will no doubt not do ANYTHING to halt THAT perception either...
ALSO...telling people to stay home from a parade that started, literally, as some moms who didn't want to (or couldn't) drag their kids downtown to stay home from a FAMILY parade, because drinkers can't NOT drink for a few hours out of a day...what sort of sad somment is THAT to make about the people who DO attend? AGAIN, this sort of mentality is exactly from where the stereotype comes...

What time does it start?